So Jed did some work for me last night, and we
now have a set of journal entries on the new site. Yay! (Hmm...I thought he had put up a live journal feed, but this entry isn't showing up there, so I guess not? Will have to ask him once he wakes up...) I'll be fiddling with this all day, but I thought I'd summarize my current questions/thoughts on the design:
- Do you like the color scheme? I feel like something fresh and spring-like, and I've always liked the combination of blue and green. I don't know that it'll be this way forever, but for now... If we stick with blue/green, are the shades good? They're maybe slightly brighter than I'd ideally like...
- Just use the b/w photo on the front page, or have the photo change on each page every time a page is refreshed or a new page is loaded? (Leaning towards the latter.)
- The right column -- should I a) get rid of it and move the photo into the blog section, b) leave it as is (sort of empty), or c) add more content below the photo? I could move the external navigation links there, for example (like the SLF, DesiLit, SH, CS), or include something completely different, like excerpts from my writing. But I think the latter might just be too much stuff to read, confusing to a new visitor. I'm leaning towards a, but could be convinced otherwise.
- Do I put the erotica covers on the front page? (I'm leaning towards yes -- they're suggestive, certainly, but no more explicit than you'd see in a high-end magazine perfume ad. (Although those are usually b/w -- somehow the colored body images, especially the bright colors for Wet, are a bit more aggressive.)
- Cheesy, cool, or just practical to have all my book covers scroll across the bottom of the site's front page? (If they don't scroll, they get too long across or down, and I'd have to just pick a few of them. Which would be hard.) Jed would need to learn some more Javascript or Flash or something to do this, since it's beyond me right now.
- There must be a way to make the color in the columns extend to the bottom of the column, but I don't know what it is. Right now, I've just added some extra returns to make it extend a bit beyond the bottom of the content. If someone does know, please let me know! :-)
Oh please do not make the book covers slide across the bottom. Anything on a web page that animates is automatically perceived as an annoying ad, and therefore a reason to totally avert your eyes from that section of the page.
Hmm…I can see that argument, but they’d be at the bottom, so presumably visitors have already read all the actual content on the page. I really was thinking of the covers more as a decorative element, though ideally, you’d also have the option of clicking on the covers to get to the pages for those books.
Sort of like what Melcher does with its book covers, although less cluttered-looking, and with a slower max speed. At least for me, my automatic reaction doesn’t treat that as an ad. What do you think?
Wow, i don’t like the animated scrolling covers you linked to at all.
OK, I admit that the Melcher thing doesn’t look like an ad. But it is still really annoying and I think you would be crazy to try to imitate it.